To properly maintain a computer network, a network administrator needs to have up-to-date information available about the devices in the network, and how the devices are interconnected. In addition, as the network grows, the network administrator may be required to add new devices to a network or to reconfigure devices in the network. The administrator needs to have a clear understanding of the topology of the network, i.e. the network resources and relationship therebetween on physical and/or logical levels. The network topology can be presented in graphical format allowing different views and levels of the network topology graphs.
A network topology graph can also be used as the basis for automated network management such as diagnosing connectivity problems, designing network connectivity requests, implementing network connectivity requests, verifying network connectivity changes and monitoring network connectivity status.
The problems of topology network modeling and connectivity analyses have been recognized in the conventional art and various systems have been developed to provide a solution, for example:
U.S. Pat. No. 5,276,789 discloses system for automatically laying out and graphically displaying the topology of a computer network system. The layout system retrieves a list of the nodes within the network and their interconnections from a database which can be manually built by a network administrator or automatically constructed by other software. The system will provide any of three views that can be requested by the user. An Internet view is the largest and shows the interconnection of different networks. A network view can be shown for any of the networks described in the Internet view. A network is comprised of segments and the system will display a view of the nodes connected to any one of the segments. The system will automatically update the view as new nodes become available in the database. This aspect of the system and allows the system to dynamically update the graph when the list of nodes is being supplied by other software. The system also allows the user to dynamically alter the graph by using a graphical input device to move any of the objects displayed on the graph.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,124 discloses a method of graphically displaying data on a display device of a processing system and a computer system employing the method. The processing system includes a memory for storing tasks, a processing circuit for executing ones of the tasks, and a display device. The display device, which is associated with the processing circuit, is operative to provide a display area that is accessible to executed ones of the tasks. The display area is capable of displaying a symbolic representation of a network model. The memory includes a network modeling task that is retrievable and executable by the processing circuit to create a set of associated data records representing network elements within the network model. The associated data records include multiplicity indicia for providing an abbreviated expression of quantities of the network elements within the network model. The multiplicity indicia simplifying the modeling task and facilitating the display of a symbolic representation of the network model on the display device.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,377,987 discloses a method for determining the actual physical topology of network devices in a network. To determine a physical topology, a discovery mechanism determines a set of network addresses for identifying devices within a network. Based on the set of network addresses, the discovery mechanism identifies a group of devices that are associated with the network. Layer 2 and Layer 3 configuration information is gathered from the group of devices to identify possible neighboring devices within the network. The configuration information is then processed to generate topology information that identifies true neighboring devices and the actual links that exist between each of the neighboring devices. The mechanism eliminates misleading information and prevents generation of incorrect topologies.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,035,934 discloses a system capable to improve a network designer's ability to analyze a data network having several routers. The system accesses static routing information and/or open shortest path first route summarization information, determines an identity of a network prefix using the accessed information, and analyzes the data network using the determined identity. The network designer can use this determined identity for traffic analysis or modeling of the data network.
US Patent Application No. 2002/022952 discloses a method and system for use in administering a complex system, such as a distributed computing ensemble. A model of the system being administered is prepared, preferably during runtime, by a combination of autodiscovery processes and manual input of information as needed. The model represents not only the resources found in the administered system, but also the service-relationships among those resources. The system administrator also can define elements in the model corresponding to arbitrary groupings of already-existing parts of the model. Software agents, which can be reconfigured, started and terminated as desired during runtime, report changes in state of the managed resources to the model, which updates itself and explores portions of the model adjacent (in terms of the service relationships) to the affected resource(s). Clusters of neighboring state-changes that have a logical relation to each other are grouped together as an alarm, and are preferably represented in a graphical display. Any root-cause event of this type is marked as such, and any portions of the modeled system being (or logically likely to be) affected by the changes are also identified and displayed.
US Patent Application No. 2003/212908 discloses a method and system for simulating computer networks and computer network components to test computer network security. A user specifies a desired configuration of a simulated computer network by using a configuration manager. The user also defines all the network components within the simulated computer network by specifying whether a component should be provided in hardware or should be simulated via software. Upon receiving the above-mentioned information from the user, the configuration manager acquires the required hardware resources from a hardware inventory. The configuration manager utilizes an interface switch that connects the hardware in the hardware inventory to produce the desired network layout. Next, the specified configuration for each of the network components is pushed into the acquired hardware resources. Computer network components to be simulated with software are subsequently initialized by the configuration manager. At this point, the user can use the simulated computer network for real-time testing of network security.
US Patent Application No. 2009/097418 discloses systems and methods for network service path analysis. A program running on a computer utilizes a Layer 3 topology of a computer network to create a directed graph representing deliverability of packets across the network. By analyzing access control lists and firewall rule sets from the network, along with modeling routing protocol behavior and policy as packet filters, the program performs a series of matrix multiplications, using an optimized decomposition of the IP packet space. The resulting matrix contains all of the path information for all deliverable packets. The matrix populates a network path database that captures the set of packets deliverable between any pair of Internet Protocol addresses in the network.
US Patent Application No. 2009/313362 discloses a system and associated method for building a network model of a network for a network management application. The network management application discovering a router discovers peering routers using network reachability information in a routing protocol. Undiscoverable peering routers are created within the network model by the network management application from network reachability information. Also a local subnet for the router, a remote subnet for a peer, a remote interface between the router and the peer also may be created to model the network in a network management application from information from the routing protocol.